Lake Jocassee & the Jocassee Gorges Guide

Lake Jocassee is South Carolina’s secret wonder: a deep, cold, impossibly clear mountain reservoir tucked in the Jocassee Gorges, fed by rivers that plunge off the escarpment straight into the lake as waterfalls you can only reach by boat. National Geographic named the Jocassee Gorges one of the world’s “last great places,” a global biodiversity hotspot, and it looks the part — clear green water, forested walls, and hidden falls where you can nose a boat right up under the spray. There’s no development on its shores, just the wild gorges, which is exactly why it feels like nowhere else in the state.